Alternative to Putinka briefly / THU 4-12-12 / Go farther sloganeer once / Actress Veronica who was model in last cigarette ad show on US TV / Judiciary checker / 1929 #1 hit Now he's gone we're through / He is more antique Roman than Dane / When doubled vitamin deficiency

Constructor: Michael Shteyman

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: AMERICAN / RED CROSS (26D: With 21-Down, humanitarian organization) — other answers include CLARA BARTON (20A: Founder of 26-/21-Down, who died on April 12, 1912) and BLOOD DONORS (55A: Some 26-/21 Down volunteers), and there's a (non-) RED CROSS formed by the black squares in the middle of the grid

Word of the Day: XEROSIS (44D: Abnormal dryness, to a dermatologist) —

n., pl., -ses (-sēz).

1. Abnormal dryness, especially of the skin, eyes, or mucous membranes.
2. The normal hardening of aging tissue.

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/xerosis#ixzz1rn12REbL

• • •

Happy death day, CLARA BARTON!

One of my readers is a bigwig at the RED CROSS, so I know at least one person who will like this.

A pretty thin theme mildly enhanced by 1. intersecting theme answers and 2. a shape in the middle. Honestly, I couldn't even see a theme until I was nearly done. It's not like I haven't (many times) seen grids with crosses in the middle of them. When I got the adjacent Xs, I thought maybe there was gonna be some weird "cross" / X / something theme. But it's just RED CROSS. Actually, theme is probably CLARA BARTON, since it's her death day and all, but CLARA BARTON isn't in the middle of the grid, so too bad for her. I thought maybe LAB COAT (32A: White jacket, often) was supposed to be part of the theme, but it's symmetrical with LEXICAL (42A: Vocabulary-related), which surely isn't.

Surprised at how good my time was considering how much floundering there was, starting with CIA at 1A: Govt. org. (really, do they both need to be abbr.?) whose logo depicts an eagle standing on a key (NSA). Was annoyed at having to know some random model until I realized she is a common crossword answer—just normally clued as a "Hill Street Blues" actress (4A: Actress Veronica who was the model in the last cigarette ad shown on U.S. TV). Annoyed by clue on PINE TAR, since it helps you get a handle on only one, singular, thing (that I know of) (24A: It helps you get a handle on things). Also annoyed by clue on BADNESS (9D: Cool quality, in modern slang), since it's most commonly used —slangily— as a synonym for "Cool!" i.e. adjectivally. See also "money" (looks like a noun, used —slangily— like an adjective). I'm guessing [Initial feeling?] gets you ESP because E and S and P are ... initials? Terrible. Never heard of Putinka (2D: Alternative to Putinka, briefly)—meaningful to the constructor, no doubt, but do most U.S. folk know it? Not that STOLI was hard to get. I mean, what else happens in Russia besides drinking and political assassinations, right? (please send offended mail to: "I'm kidding")



You can have all these back: BERI, ORNE, PASA, OREAD (ugh, I booted that one—went with DRYAD), ONE C (really!?), ABU.

Bullets:

• 46A: Judiciary checker: Abbr. (EXEC.) — I like this clue. It's interestingly awkward.
• 39D: 1929 #1 hit whose title follows the line "Now he's gone and we're through" ("AM I BLUE?") — rough for me. First, when I hear that song, a man is singing it. Second, I thought the song was a man's name, so I was like "AMI ... AMI who? Who the hell is named 'AMI'?"
• 4D: He is "more an antique Roman than a Dane," in literature (HORATIO) — Alas, the "Dane" part made this easy(ish).
• 52A: Capital of the country that's alphabetically first in the United Nations (KABUL) — I went through a brief "capital memorization" phase. I didn't get far. I *did* get to KABUL, since I was proceeding through the atlas alphabetically.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

PS SYNDICATED SOLVERS (i.e. May 17, 2012 solvers)! These puzzles are Fantastic. All $$ to charity. Get 'em.

P.S. For anyone with an interest in solving the puzzles from this year's Crosswords LA tournament [which just happened this past weekend], they're now available online at http://alexboisvert.com/xwla/.

For $5, you get six tournament crosswords (by Donna Levin, Aimee Lucido & Zoe Wheeler, Todd McClary, Trip Payne, Brendan Emmett Quigley, and Byron Walden), two bonus crosswords (by Andrea Carla Michaels and Doug Peterson), and a clever team game (by John Schiff). As always, proceeds from puzzle pack sales are donated to charity.